Family
As it turned out, Maxim Childersin was right about everything. Within half an hour, Neverfell was seated in the back of Childersin’s jolting carriage, watching the bobbing heads of the two broad-backed sorrel-coloured ponies ahead. Her hands kept creeping up to touch her face, to find out what it was doing. Right now, she could feel her mouth stretching outwards into an enormous grin as her spirits, ever volatile, rose uncontrollably like bubbles. Whatever else these transactions meant, they meant no longer being in a cage. Better yet, they meant saving Zouelle and Borcas from trouble, and Grandible from an executioner’s block.
There was so much to see and hear that she started to feel drunk. Every carriage in the thoroughfare was roofless, to avoid sticking in low-ceilinged tunnels, and thus Neverfell could easily make out the well-dressed occupants of every passing vehicle. As the carriage rattled along sandstone colonnades, then down rose-marble avenues dappled like raspberry ice cream, she found herself passing ever grander carriages with better decorated people within. She was struck by how tall many of them were, taller than the throngs in the common thoroughfares, or the servants that surrounded them, even a little taller than the intimidating Enquirers from whom she had so recently been rescued. These were clearly Courtiers, and Neverfell could scarcely resist leaning out to stare.
Another abrupt corner, and she found herself staring down a strange, straight avenue fifty feet long. The walls were about thirty feet high, and were painted to resemble a row of lavish townhouses, of the sort she had sometimes seen in pictures. The pastel paint of the ‘houses’ had a soft and sugary twinkle. They were studded with doors and glowing windows, and even had wooden balconies, from which hung paper lanterns like multicoloured moons.
‘Here we are,’ declared Childersin. Neverfell was helped down from the carriage, and stood gawping in the ‘street’. Beneath her feet were cobbles. The ceiling above had been smoothed with plaster, and painted deep blue like a night sky. Not far away, figures strolled beneath canopies carried by attendants, or lounged in tasselled wooden swing-seats.
‘It’s warm!’ Neverfell gaped her mouth and breathed out slowly, but could not summon the slightest hint of visible vapour. ‘How is it so warm?’ She barely listened as Childersin began a patient explanation about embers under the floor.
As Neverfell plunged into the crowd, more than one pedestrian flinched away, clutching a scented handkerchief to their nose, before looking at her properly and examining her with real fascination. Neverfell sensed that she was a smudged and ugly word on a page of perfect calligraphy, yet everything around her was so beautiful she could not bring herself to care. Suddenly she was herself again, a skinny bundle of fidget with limbs and fingers that wanted to be everywhere at once.
‘Look! Monkey!’
‘Er, no, Neverfell, that is just a short servant with a stoop.’
‘That man’s moustache is fake yellow!’
‘How nice. Now, Neverfell, if you come with—’
‘Why do the houses look like they’re covered in sugar?’
‘Because they . . . Neverfell, I do not think you are supposed to climb those. No – no, Neverfell! No licking the walls! This way.’
Only the firm hand on Neverfell’s collar prevented her from running off inquisitively through the crowd, and with difficulty she was led to one of the townhouses. The door opened at Childersin’s approach, and then Neverfell’s wits were bewildered as a torrent of servants swept over them. Ready hands removed their boots, and slippers were laid out for them to step into. The door closed behind them, and trap-lanterns surged into life. Childersin’s coat was taken, and warm cups of mulled cider were placed in their hands. All this seemed to happen without either Neverfell or Childersin even breaking stride.
Neverfell had not been sure what to expect, and had walked in braced for a broom to be thrust immediately into her hands, followed by a list of chores. As she sipped her spiced cider, however, Neverfell could not help feeling that life as an indentured servant was looking up.
‘First things first,’ declared Childersin, while Neverfell was still staring around her at the neatly chiselled, square-cornered, carpeted room, with its lack of rugged walls, stalagmites or gravel. ‘There is somebody here who will be very glad to see you, Neverfell.’ He marched her through another door, and Neverfell gave a whoop.
‘Zouelle!’
It was indeed the mysterious blonde girl, looking to Neverfell’s mind more angelic than ever. Better yet, she still appeared to be looking after the rabbit that Neverfell had given her to guard. Since then somebody had bathed it and placed it in a small cage with a handle on top. There was a pink bow tied round its neck, though it had made some progress on lacerating this with its hind claws.
Zouelle ran forward, hesitated, then gave Neverfell a careful hug, in spite of the sodden disarray of the younger girl’s clothes. Like everybody else, she had trouble taking her eyes off Neverfell’s face, but she kept her smile in place. It was ‘smile number one’, warm and confidential.
‘Zouelle Paractaca Childersin, one of my favourite nieces,’ introduced Childersin. ‘Zouelle – you already know Neverfell.’
Neverfell noticed that for all her brave Face the older girl was very pale. She recalled suddenly her part in Zouelle’s plan, the part that had gone so badly awry. Next moment she remembered her own promise never to admit to knowing Zouelle and Borcas.
‘Oh no! Did I just . . . ?’ She tailed off, aware that finishing the sentence was unlikely to make things better. ‘Are you all right? I mean, you’re not in trouble, are you?’
‘Not any more,’ Childersin answered promptly. ‘You saved her when you signed these papers. That was one of the reasons I was so happy to help you, by the way. If you were willing to go out on a limb to protect a girl you barely knew, I thought the least I could do was return the favour.’
Neverfell grinned at everybody, and even poked her finger towards the rabbit, who made a determined attempt to bite it.
‘Oh – but the rabbit belongs to Master Grandible! Can we send it back to him, and can I write a note to go with it? Just so I can tell him where I am and that everything is all right.’
‘Of course,’ consented Maxim Childersin with a smile. ‘Now, I have some matters to discuss with Zouelle, but I will leave you in good hands. Miss Howlick!’ At his call a middle-aged woman appeared in the door. ‘This is the young lady I was telling you about, the one who will be staying with us from now on. She requires pen and paper so that she may write to her previous guardian. After that, I have a task for you. She has had a very trying few days, and will need a hot bath and some new clothes. Twenty-five hours from now, I wish to see her fit for the highest circles. The highest.’
Neverfell was dizzy with love for everybody. She pushed back her grimy pigtails, and beamed into the round, moist, carefully impassive face of Miss Howlick.
‘Your face is like a great big bun!’ Neverfell told her happily.
Childersin and Miss Howlick exchanged glances.
‘Do what you can,’ conceded Childersin.
Zouelle prided herself on always being ready with a plan. When catastrophe hit, she was a little more cool-headed than her fellows, a little quicker to turn a problem to advantage.
Right now, however, she was anything but cool. As she followed her uncle through his townhouse, she mentally flicked through her repertoire of smiles with increasing desperation. She could not be certain, even now, how angry her uncle really was, but she was sure that she could not afford to look amused, or flippant, or little-girly, or complacent. It was too late to be warm and winning. She had to be something new and she did not have a Face for it.
Her ‘uncle’ was actually her great-great-great-uncle. Like many of his peers, Maxim Childersin had taken the necessary measures to prevent his body falling into old age. He had a youthful air and a talent for putting people at ease, but Zouelle was always aware of him watching the world through old, old eyes and noting every detail. She had enemies in the family, but until now had held her head high, knowing that she wore Maxim Childersin’s approval and expectations across her brow like an invisible crown. Even now she could not be sure whether that crown had been dashed from her head.
‘Come on into my laboratory. We are less likely to be disturbed.’
As usual the room was dimly lit, to avoid exciting the more volatile Wines. With care, Zouelle picked her way between the crowded tables covered in glass bottles, scales and trap-masks sealed in case of poison gas clouds.
Every member of the family of sufficient age and skill to be trusted with the handling of Wines had their own laboratory, including Zouelle herself. The blending of True Wines was a dangerous business, particularly when they had conflicting personalities. In Maxim Childersin’s laboratory, a sigil-covered white barrel of Smogwreath currently sighed in one corner, whilst in the centre of the room a set of concentric salt circles confined a restlessly creaking vat of Addlemeau. The two Wines were not yet ready to blend. The Addlemeau still needed to develop its undertones of vanilla, and the Smogwreath had not overcome its fear of strangers. Both, if disturbed, were quite capable of tearing strips off a man’s soul like bark from a tree.
Childersin dropped himself into a large and comfortable chair, and spent a few moments studying his great-great-great-niece. She had by this time settled upon No. 65 – The Pupil Waits in Eagerness for Instruction as the most inoffensive Face at her disposal.
‘Well, well. How grown up you look. I like to think I’m quite a good uncle, but then it turns out I haven’t been watching my favourite niece closely enough. I take my eye off you for a moment – and you decide to become an adult while I’m not looking.’
These almost sounded like words of approval, but they made Zouelle more nervous and not less. She had developed a talent for sensing which of Uncle Maxim’s mild statements were the first rattle of an imminent rockfall.
‘I have an eye for talent and promise,’ he went on, ‘and I’ve always seen potential in you. Do you know why I sent you to the Beaumoreau Academy? Because I thought it would give you a chance to cut your teeth. All those daughters of prominent families, ambitious and clever enough to give you a run for your money . . . a perfect playground for you to practise your arts of intrigue and manipulation, so that you’d be ready for the great game of Court when you were older.
‘But you got impatient, didn’t you?’
Zouelle swallowed and bowed her head.
‘You wanted to join in the grown-up games,’ Childersin continued. ‘When Madame Appeline visited your school to talk to the headmistress about the potential Putty Girls, you decided to sneak a look through the papers in her valise.’
‘I . . . am so very sorry.’ Zouelle managed to keep her voice level. ‘I was arrogant and . . . thought I could help. I knew that Madame Appeline was not a friend of our family, so I thought if I could find out something incriminating it might be useful . . .’
‘Useful?’ asked Childersin softly. ‘You got caught. How useful is that? And then, instead of coming to the family to admit what had happened, you tried to cover it up. You decided you could trick the Facesmith into drinking Wine that would make her forget the last month, so that she would never remember you rifling through her bag. And when Neverfell blundered across your path you roped her into the plan. Correct?’
Zouelle maintained a calmly respectful expression. She could not let herself tremble, for that would be a timid appeal for pity and would disappoint the man before her. Instead she simply nodded, mouth dry.
‘You have quite a good eye, Zouelle. Look at the bottle on the table in front of you. What can you tell me about it?’
Zouelle cleared her throat, took a few moments to still the tremble in her hands, then examined the label.
‘It is a Permonniac – sixty-two years old, about a year from its prime. Very rare. Very valuable.’
‘And if I was asked which I value most, this bottle or yourself, what do you think I would answer?’
Zouelle felt her heart plummet. What answer could he possibly expect her to give? ‘It is a very valuable Wine. I . . .’
Childersin chuckled. ‘Don’t be silly. In terms of what I value, there is no competition. There is nothing more important to me than family. No bottle of Wine matters more to me than you do.’
Zouelle did not relax. The conversation was not over. She could feel it.
‘So. Answer me a second question. Suppose right now I had to choose between saving you, or saving this bottle, which do you think I would pick?’
Zouelle looked up into the face of the man she admired most in the world, and could not muster a voice. She mouthed an answer, but lacked enough certainty to give it sound.
Me?
Childersin leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. ‘That would have been a very easy question to answer a few days ago,’ he said. ‘Today it is much harder. As I say, nothing means as much to me as this family. Nothing. Everything I do is to ensure the strength, safety and future of its members. This bottle –’ he tapped the cork very gently – ‘is an asset that can help me do that, so that I can strengthen our position and protect everyone. A few days ago, I thought of you as another asset, a seed for a bright future. Well, your little games just put the family at risk. Should I really protect something that endangers everybody else here?’
Zouelle shook her head. Try as she might, she could not prevent herself shaking. In spite of her great-great-great-uncle’s gentle tone, she felt as if she were being systematically stripped of her armour and skin. ‘If there is anything I can do to make things better . . .’
‘Why? Do you have another plan, my dear? Like the one that left us entangled with cases of burglary, fraud, attempted memory-theft and consorting with an outsider?’
‘Did the Enquiry say—’
‘—anything about you? No. Neverfell still hadn’t told them anything useful when I arrived. Of course, they would have forced the truth out of her sooner or later if she had remained in their hands. The only way I could prevent that was to arrange her indenture and purchase her, at considerable expense. Buying Madame Appeline’s silence and forbearance will be much more difficult and costly, I fear, but I have contacted her and it seems she is at least willing to discuss the matter with me.’
Hesitantly, the weight on Zouelle’s chest started to lift. Ever since the failure of her plan she had been haunted by thoughts of being dragged away by the Enquiry, interrogated in their black halls and left to rot in some bat-infested hell-cage. Her uncle had saved her. That had to mean that he still valued her, in spite of the trouble she had brought.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I promise I will not interfere in Court business again.’
‘Oh yes, you will.’
Zouelle looked up to see her uncle regarding her with a sad little smile.
‘You decided that you were ready to start meddling in the great game. I really hope you were right, Zouelle, because once you start playing it you can never leave.
‘You are in the game now, my dear. There is no going back.’
Neverfell had never had the luxury of a bath with hot water and bubbles before, and over the next six hours she made up for lost time in no uncertain terms. Her pigtails were matted so densely they were almost like wood, but Miss Howlick battled them with oils and teased them with spindles until Neverfell had hair, slippery clinging hair that got in her eyes, and floated in the water, and slid over her shoulders like dark red paint.
Neverfell’s long-ingrained smell of cheese was the great enemy, and Miss Howlick fought it with thyme oil and with saffron, with sandalwood and with pumice-stones. Most of all, she fought it with pot after pot of piping-hot water, until Neverfell’s fingers were wrinkled and her footsoles were bleached. When all that remained was a faint, phantom Stilton whiff that all but the sharpest of noses would miss, Miss Howlick sent a serving girl to fetch ‘Miss Metella’.
When Miss Metella arrived, Neverfell took one look at her and then tried to hide under the soapsuds. Miss Metella was an elderly, apple-cheeked woman with a calming voice, the effect being spoilt only by the fact that she wore two skin-pink silken eye patches, each with a picture of a wide, blue eye embroidered on to it.
She was obviously a perfumier, for all perfumiers had their eyes removed when they became apprentices. Perfumiers were notorious for disliking cheesemakers, whose reek offended perfumiers’ elegant noses, and who also had an annoying knack of noticing the use of Perfume when others did not. However, her air of calm and commonsense eventually lured Neverfell out.
‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ she beamed, adding the tiniest drop from a pipette into Neverfell’s bath. ‘We’re both friends of the Childersin family, so we’ve got nothing to quarrel about.’
It was a very different Neverfell that confronted herself in a mirror seven hours later. Indeed, it took several minutes of flapping her arms like a penguin to convince her that she really was regarding her own reflection. The new Neverfell had softly glossy dark red hair that hung to her shoulders, and wore a simple green dress with white fur trim at the collar and cuffs. She had crochet gloves ornamented with small bobbles that her fingers itched to twiddle. Her green boots were fur-lined as well. Her face looked flushed beneath its freckles, surprised and gleeful.
She had just started to experiment, pinching and pulling at her face to make it do things, when she noticed Zouelle in the reflection behind her. To her surprise, the older girl pushed forward and folded the mirror shut with a click.
‘Miss Howlick should not have given you that,’ Zouelle said, a little tartly. ‘I will have to speak to her about it.’
‘What? Why not?’ Neverfell stared nonplussed at the closed mirror.
‘Your face will spoil if you keep staring at it like that. Anyway, if you can remember what you just saw, you do not really need a mirror any more, do you?’ Zouelle’s tone was confident and big-sisterly again. Her smile was even.
‘What’s wrong?’ Just for a moment Neverfell felt as if there were an invisible wire pulled to razor tautness between her and the other girl, humming tension into the room. If she blundered towards it, it might snap or cut her, and yet she half wished it would, so that she knew where it was. ‘Is it something I did?’
‘What did you tell the Enquiry?’ Zouelle was still wearing her warm and confidential Face, but the eyes no longer matched it, frantically scanning Neverfell’s own features. ‘Uncle Maxim says you didn’t tell them anything. That isn’t true, is it?’
‘But it is! I mean . . . I told them bits of your plan, but I didn’t say who was in it except me. I never told them about you.’
‘That makes no sense.’ Zouelle kept slipping Face between her confidential smile and a look of polite concern as if uncertain what to use. ‘Of course you told them. Why wouldn’t you tell them?’
Neverfell stared at her. ‘They would have put you in a cage like mine! I couldn’t let them do that! After all, you were just trying to help me, weren’t you? You’re my friend!’
It was Zouelle’s turn to stare. At least that seemed to be what her eyes were doing. The rest of her face was still politely concerned. And then she looked away, and gave an utterly charming little laugh.
‘That’s right,’ she said in her usual tone. ‘I’m your friend. And I’m going to look after you, Neverfell. Uncle has asked me to help you with everything. What to wear, how to talk, how to act in good company. My uncle has . . . great plans for you.’
Neverfell’s spirits skyrocketed again. ‘So everything’s all right?’
‘Yes, Neverfell. Everything’s fine.’
Of course it was. Neverfell was just being nervous and stupid. She could see that now. Zouelle did not resist Neverfell’s hug, but there was something stiff about the way she returned it, and her hands felt cold.